Review: Killer Crocodile (1989)

Directed by: Fabrizio De Angelis
Starring: Richard Anthony Crenna, Sherrie Rose, Thomas Moore
Written by: Fabrizio De Angelis, Dardano Sacchetti
Music by: Riz Ortolani
Country: Italy
Available on: Blu-ray (Severin)
IMDb

As you may have gleaned by now, I’m a sucker for Italian horror. Filmmakers from the country tend to have two things in common: an obsession with Hollywood and a fearlessness in their pursuit of capitalizing on the stupidity of the American film-goer. As a result, the Italian scene is known for a glut of ripoffs based on breakthrough hits from the United States, such as Alien, Terminator, Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, and Jaws. Killer Crocodile takes a shot at the latter, but incorporates an exotic tropical locale like many horror movies from the peninsula. So here we’ve got a swamp and a giant croc instead of a shark at Martha’s Vineyard. A group of young environmentalists are investigating toxic waste dumps in the Dominican Republic and encounter a massive reptile hungry for human meat. Killer Crocodile hits the usual Jaws beats, including a public event interrupted by a mauling, a local politician that refuses to acknowledge the problem, and an ending punctuated by an exploding creature (this time, for some reason, from a spinning propeller thrown in its mouth). Though Fabrizio De Angelis’ flick has some of the usual silliness expected from Italian horror, this is actually better-acted and more straightforward than expected — and that’s to its detriment. What usually distinguishes these clones is their naked incompetence and tendency towards the outrageous. Killer Crocodile is not great, to be sure, but it’s also too well-made and relatively focused to reach the depths of ludicrousness required to really stand out. There is some preposterousness, however, including a scene of our “Quint” stand-in surfing on the back of the croc while stabbing it furiously with a harpoon as it slowly, oh-so-slowly dives below the water, and an amusing scene of the once-idealistic characters debating the fleeting merits of their optimism. “Hey, you guys. What’s happened to us?” our main pal, Kevin (Richard Anthony Crenna), is asked. He says, “We’ve changed. Alright, maybe for the worse. But that crocodile has to die. I want to kill it.” Self-reflection over. The huge crocodile is pretty cool and, as is the Italian filmmaking way, you can tell cast and crew were legitimately put in harm’s way a handful of times during production, which gives things a flavor of realism. Riz Ortolani can always be trusted to write a beautiful score, even when he’s taking too much influence from John Williams. But by the end, I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and said, “Alright."

Overall rating: 5 out of 10